"Life is what you make it." Except it is not. Some times life is what it is despite of what you do. Life will be life no matter what you do. What does change is your perspective.

You see me out and having fun, building others, encouraging you and you may think that my life is perfect. These are assumptions, my life is real- I would not lie to you- I have hard times and experiences as well. How do I deal? Some times I cry, that's a natural reaction and there is no shame in that but the time comes when the tears end. I'll share with you my greatest method of coping with and turning around perspective.

GOD! Yes, I said God, the Almighty Father in Heaven. I pray and read the Bible. It really is that simple when I push stubbornness and questioning aside. By questioning I mean the "Why is this happening to me?" "Aren't I a better person than (insert name)?" "The wicked people are living and getting away with so much, why am I hurting?" . These are the kinds of questions I'd found myself asking at some point in my life and before I could ever finish my rant, God leads me to prayer and then to meditation where I could hear from Him.

There are times that I sound like Job in chapter 17, then He leads me to chapters like 31 verses 16 through 40, followed by Psalms 150. The flow of these chapters is like this: complaint and grieving ---> questioning if you've done something to deserve all that you're facing, recognition that no, not always is life's hardships a punishment for something you've done and acknowledgement and repentance if you have done wrong ---> a complete shift in emotion, you begin to praise God for His sovereignty (His power to do as He pleases) and knowing that He has the BEST for you in store despite the outward appearance. You begin to trust Him, like you should have before.

God allows us moments to cry, because that is within our human weakness. I'm grateful for that weakness because it is in that weakness that I realize and learn to rely on the strength of God! (2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9) Things are not perfect AND they will never be- that is not a pessimistic statement, on the contrary, it the most positive statement to put to you. Perfection for us means we've reached the best it can get and no more. On this earth, with this chaos, perfect existing right now would be awful! So we MUST KEEP striving to BE BETTER, DO BETTER.